1. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to a bone conduction microphone mounting system and more particularly, to a system having a bone conduction microphone or transducer for converting sounds into electrical signals, and mounting means including damper means for isolating the transducer from extraneous vibrations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Bone conduction microphones pick up vibrations in the cranial bones of a person corresponding to sounds produced by the vocal cords and are used often for enhancement and amplification of speech in various systems. For examples, they may be incorporated into a personal speaker/amplifier system. As a result of various illnesses, some persons suffer from a partial disfunction of their vocal cords whereby they can produce only sounds of relatively low level which are not projected far enough for other people to hear, or which cannot be sensed by other audio instruments such as a telephone. In order to alleviate this problem, personal speaker/amplifier systems have been proposed with a bone conduction microphone which picks up these low level sounds and converts them to electrical signals. Other elements of the system amplify the electrical signals, reproduce them as sounds, and project them in a manner imitating normal speech.
Bone conduction microphones are also used in communication systems for transmission of speech from very noisy environments such as, for example, helicopters as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,787,641 and 3,723,670.
One problem with prior art bone conduction microphone systems is that they are supported by a mounting system, secured for example on a headband or inside a helmet. However, extraneous mechanical vibrations can be picked up by the microphone from the headband or helmet through the mounting system resulting in noise superimposed on the speech signals.